


my birthday began with the water (birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name)

by Azdaema



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, I guess I'm experimenting with That Kind™ of the title now???, One Shot, Parallelism, Pre-Canon, before life punched them in the face, happy kiddos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 09:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20580131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azdaema/pseuds/Azdaema
Summary: Two little girls with dreams of being knights.





	my birthday began with the water (birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name)

**Author's Note:**

> Am I the _only_ person other than Jaime who is fond of _both_ of them? It sometimes feels that way. I figured it was about time I at least _tried_ writing a little one-shot about them.

For a moment all is still; the only sound the wind off the sea, and waves beating at the shore somewhere far below.

And then cries of gulls erupt, followed moments later by the birds themselves, rising from below the lip of the cliff to herald her arrival.

The child climbs the last few steps cut into the cliff at a panting run and bursts out onto the flatland. Her flaxen hair curls up around her face, wind-blown and still half-wet from the sea. She brandishes a stick in one hand, stabbing it in the direction of the gulls and laughing as they take flight again, rising above her head in a flurry of beating wings. She clutches her stick as if it were a sword. Not the way a _swordsman_ holds his sword—for she has never been taught that, much as she wishes to—but with the adoration of a child for their favorite toy. Not even an hour hence, this blade will be tossed aside and forgotten along the path up to the castle, but in this moment it is her most prized possession. It feels good in her hand; it has a good balance, she decides. (It doesn't.)

The gulls scream their cries at her, and she screams back in unadulterated joy. The wind picking up to join her. The birds beat their wings, coming to land on the cliff's edge. She lets them, giving them a moment to tuck their wings away—still will be honorable with these opponents of hers, she decides, she is the Dragonknight—before drawing close again and spinning in a circle, arm and blade outstretched. She imagines hers is the lost ancestral Valyrian blade of her family, born back in the days when they were kings—although in her mind's eye, it looks suspiciously like the sword her father carries now. The gulls flee from her yet again, proving the young knight's prowess.

Summer has come again at last. She is in her seventh year, motherless, and her father has promised her the world. She—with all the indomitable tenacity of a child—believes him.

She throws her face up to the sun. She is a child yet, and life has not pruned itself down. She is Visenya, dangerous and austere; she is Aegon, enigmatic and respected; she is Rhaenys, graceful and adored. She is the great dragon Balerion himself. She is all these things and more, none a contradiction.


End file.
